Clove Hitches in Anchors

April 8, 2018 Orvel Miskiw

Two videos by Brent Peters have just come to my attention, regarding the use of clove hitches in various anchor arrangements, which are worth seeing. Clove hitches have a few advantages over most alternative knots, including simple to tie, easy to untie, minimal sling length used up, and seizing carabiners to keep them in position, prevent cross-loading, etc.

Brent also demonstrates a multi-piece trad anchor with a discussion of various considerations like upward vs. downward loading, a marginal placement, and fewer as well as more pieces in the anchor.

What impressed me most is a very nifty way to tie the clove hitch, that I haven’t seen before. That should be a boon to most climbers, as I often see people fussing with ‘which way to put on the second loop’, etc. A typical and common application of his method is at the master point of an anchor sling at a 2-bolt station, where it takes him about 1 second to tie the clove hitch directly on the locking crab. Unfortunately as with most neat tricks, a small problem comes with it, as I see it anyway; in this case the gate of the master carabiner ends up facing the wall (rock or ice) and would be a continual nuisance for clipping and unclipping at the station and every station.

Any time I run into a reversed carabiner, I make a point of turning it around ASAP, otherwise it quickly becomes annoying. So in this case I experimented to find a modification to Peters’ method that results in the carabiner gate facing outward, and found a few:

1. tie is as he shows, but before snugging the hitch, hold it together and take out the carabiner to clip it in ‘from behind’, or
2. clip the carabiner in to the sling from behind, then raise the V and use his technique overhead — awkward, needs to be relearned, or
3. clip the carabiner in to the sling from behind, then use his technique ‘around one side and from behind’, or
4. use a finger (or two) instead of the carabiner to grasp the sling and form the clove hitch on your finger(s), then replace the fingers with the carabiner ‘from behind’.

These all end up with the carabiner gate-outward, and I find 3. and 4. both practical and very workable, though naturally a bit less slick than Brent’s original method.

Rather than bothering you with diagrams here, I recommend you check out the following videos and draw your own conclusion: in the slick-clove-hitch video, you clearly see the gate-in master crab as soon as he ties it the first time — if you don’t mind the gate-inward master crab, you’re in, but if you find it a bother, you may want to find your own way to reverse it, or best, refer to my suggestions, above, with 3. being just about as good: